“Sand, ma’am? I’ve been out in it a good part of the day, and look at me! No, no; come to dinner.”
“Ah, but you were born tidy!” she sighed, giving her clothes furtive shakes and pulls, and hoping fervently it was not to be a dinner-party. In this she was reassured when Sir Harry led her into a vast dining-hall, with one absurdly small table spread in the midst. The servants hovering about looked unhappy, and Brian said something under his breath.
“Will I go and look for Stewart, General? Sure he mayn’t know of the change of hour.”
“No, no, lazy fellow! he must put up with a cold dinner. These youngsters are apt to grow negligent where there are no ladies—eh, ma’am?”
Gathering from Brian’s silence that she must not attempt to defend the maligned Stewart, Eveleen found herself gallantly placed at the head of the table, and heard her husband and brother warned they would be put under arrest forthwith if they let her so much as touch a carving-knife. While they wrestled with the dishes placed before her, in silence save for the enquiries necessary to the polite carver of the day, Eveleen looked down the table at the General, beaming through his glasses opposite her.
“It’s a big house you have here, Sir Harry! Sure it must feel like living in a church.” Her eyes wandered round the huge room.
“Glad it inspires you with such creditable sentiments, ma’am. There’s another about the same size waiting for you. These Khemistan Politicals knew how to make the money fly. No reflection on you, Ambrose—it was before your day. Besides, they needed a big place to house the establishment. A hundred and fifty souls in this house alone, besides the servants—until Lord Maryport’s order came. Now there won’t be forty, when we have you all at work.”
“But how will you get the work done by such a few, with so much fever about?” asked Eveleen in dismay.
“Fever, ma’am? there’s no fever! What put that into your head?”
“Why, all the talk at Qadirabad was that you had half the army in hospital!” she cried. Her husband came to her help, for the General was looking wrathful.